


Come Fly With Me

by Thistlerose



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship, Slash, Starfleet Academy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-22
Updated: 2010-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-13 08:07:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/135042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thistlerose/pseuds/Thistlerose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim keeps Bones from falling apart during a shuttle flight.  Not the way you're thinking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come Fly With Me

**Author's Note:**

> Written for hc_bingo. (Prompt: fear of flying.) "Come Fly With Me" is by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen; "To Live is To Fly" is by Townes Van Zandt.

His conversation with this girl isn’t going too well – apparently Cthionites are immune to the Jim Kirk charm, who would’ve thought? – so he tells her he’d better go check on his friend. It’s not exactly a lie; he left Bones about ten minutes ago, and while it’s a quick, easy flight from San Francisco to Fort Kimura up in Alaska, and Bones swears he’s been making progress getting his aviophobia in check – you never know with the good doctor.

So Jim gets up and makes his way to the back of the shuttle, where he left Bones. At first glance, the guy appears to be all right. He’s pale and he’s got his eyes closed, sure, but he’s not gulping down bourbon from his emergency flask, or trying to squeeze himself under the seats.

Not that that’s ever happened, but Jim likes to tease Bones with the image, anyway.

Jim flops into the seat beside Bones and leans toward him. Now that he’s this close, he can see the sheen on sweat on his temples, and he can see that his lips are moving almost imperceptibly. He’s muttering something.

“Hey, what’re you muttering?” Jim asks.

The hazel eyes snap open. Bones drags in a long, steadying breath before replying, in a tone that Jim considers downright surly, “Damn it, you interrupted me. I was reciting the periodic table.”

“Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon—”

“Stop it, you’re not helping.”

“Sorry.” Jim’s slightly taken aback. Not that he isn’t used to being snarled at by now, but he gets the impression Bones doesn’t really want him here, and that kind of smarts. “What were you trying to do, distract yourself?”

“That was the idea.”

“You know there are only 212 elements, right?”

“Yes, Jim, I know that.”

“So, what were you going to recite next?”

Bones shrugs. “U.S. presidents.”

“Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison—”

“ _Jim._ ”

“Then what? Bones of the hand? Lunate, capitate, triquetrum, hamate, trapezoid, scaphoid—”

“Damn it, how do you even know that?”

Jim slouches and stretches his legs. “When I broke my hand last month, I thought I’d memorize them, see if I could impress you. Are you impressed?”

“No,” Bones says flatly.

Jim grins. He should stop, he knows. It’s too easy to have fun at Bones’s expense, and he always feels badly afterward. Not just badly as in sorry, though he is, even if he doesn’t like to admit it, but badly as in – kind of ill. Which is weird. Bones is the best friend he’s ever had – which is not the same as being his best friend, although maybe he is, Jim’s never had one, so how would he know? – and Jim would take one for him or go down on him in a heartbeat, but…

Bones makes a small movement, kind of like a flinch, and Jim loses his train of thought.

“So, uh,” he says, so articulate, “how’re you doing? C’mon, talk to me.”

“Got nothing to say. Why don’t you go back and talk to that girl, the one with the forehead ridges?”

“Ilonia? Wasn’t interested. Cthionites don’t date outside their species. She said.”

“Did you tell her you’re not interested in dating?”

“Bones!” Jim lays a hand over his heart. “I’m a gentleman. D’you think I’d just proposition a fellow cadet—”

Bones calls bullshit with a single grunt, and turns away, toward the small window. Craning his neck to see over Bones’s shoulder, Jim spots the Pacific. It’s blue-gray in the morning light, and it curves gracefully toward the distant horizon. That’s nothing compared to sky, which just goes up and up and up. There isn’t a cloud to be seen. It’s glorious.

Bones clearly doesn’t think so, though. He’s clutching the armrest between them, white-knuckled. His jaw is clenched, and there’s a tic in his cheek. A bead of sweat roles down the side of his nose.

“Hey,” Jim says, pushing himself up and leaning closer. “It’s okay. We’re not going to die. Not today. Not in this shuttle.”

“We’re not? You know that for a fact?”

Bones is testing him, but Jim says with perfect sincerity, “Yeah. I do. It’s okay.”

“You’re full of it.”

Jim can’t argue with that, so he just gives Bones’s arm a quick, companionable rub. God, he’s tense. Jim rubs him some more, though it doesn’t appear to be helping; Bones just breathes out harshly and hunches his shoulders.

“Shh,” Jim soothes. “Wanna go to the head? I bet we could sneak back there.” He isn’t sure what they’d do in there. There’s really only room for one person. Well, unless one of them sat on the sink or the toilet. Bones could perch on the sink, while Jim knelt between his legs, and sucked on him until he forgot they were airborne. That could work. Though, on second thought…

Bones is probably too freaked out to get it up. Jim’s confident about his abilities, but if Bones convinces himself that it’s just not gonna happen…

Eh, bad idea.

“Want me to come up with some more lists for you? How about the moons of Jupiter. Go.” When Bones doesn’t answer, Jim starts him off: “Metis, Adrastea, Amalthea, Thebe…”

“Shut up,” Bones grates out. “Please. And stop that.”

“Stop—? Oh, sorry.” Jim lets go of Bones’s arm. “Uh.” Bones seems to want to be left alone, but Jim can’t just let him sit there, quaking with fear. That’s not what friends do, and Bones has really been trying hard with the seminars and the sims. He deserves to make it through this, his first shuttle flight in six months, with his dignity intact.

Jim’s dignity, on the other hand? Not so much of an issue.

Leaning very close to Bones’s ear, Jim starts to sing softly:

 _Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away  
If you can use some exotic booze  
There's a bar in far Bombay  
Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away_

People have told Jim that he has a nice voice. Not that he sings particularly well, but that there’s something unexpectedly pleasant about the way he rumbles through a song.

 _Once I get you up there where the air is rarified  
We’ll just glide, starry-eyed _

He skips a stanza or two because he doesn’t remember all the words. His mom used to sing it while messing around in her chem lab in the basement. Jim always liked it when she worked down there, and he used to sit on the basement steps, watching her. It was nice having her around, and you never knew: something might blow up.

Bones doesn’t seem all that impressed with Jim’s singing, but he’s breathing a little more normally now, and his hand isn’t clutching the armrest quite as tightly. Encouraged, Jim leans closer, so his breath is almost tickling Bones’s ear, and sings (softly, very softly, they don’t need an audience):

 _Weather-wise it's such a lovely day  
You just say the words and we'll beat the birds  
Down to Acapulco Bay  
It's perfect for a flying honeymoon, they say  
Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away_

“A flying honeymoon?” Bones says, arching an eyebrow, after Jim trails off.

“It’s just a song. It’s the first one I thought of that involves flying. That’s all. You’ve never heard it? It’s an old song and you’re old-fashioned.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Better?”

“Little bit,” Bones admits, sounding faintly stunned. “Thanks.”

He’s stopped sweating, but he’s still pretty pale and their ETA at Fort Kimura isn’t for another twenty minutes, so Jim tries another one:

 _Won’t say I love you, babe  
Won’t say I need you, babe  
But I’m gonna get you, babe  
And I will not do you wrong_

Okay, _now_ there’s some color in Bones’s cheeks. “That one I know,” he says when Jim draws a quick breath before the next stanza. “You know, you’re not bad, kid.”

“Think maybe I missed my calling?”

“Hmm.” Bones’s eyes close and he tips his head back. “Wouldn’t go that far. First heard that song in Ireland. In Cork. I spent a summer there, between high school and college. My family’s from there, originally.”

“Yeah? How’d you get there? Did you fly?”

“Yeah. Could’ve beamed, but I liked the idea of my atoms getting scrambled even less. Spent most of the time in the head, drinking and throwing up. It was worth it, though. The night I first heard that song, a bunch of us were stuck in a hostel. It was raining too hard to go out. And we weren’t chicken. We opened the door, and it was like standing behind a waterfall. So we just sat around drinking in the common area, and one the guys – think he was from Spain – got out this guitar. He started playing that song.”

He licks his lips, and Jim waits for him to say, _The guy was hot, incidentally, and he had an amazing voice. You kind of remind me of him._

After a moment of thoughtful silence, though, Bones just says, “I was sixteen,” like that’s in any way relevant. “Sorry. I’m rambling.”

“It’s okay. And, hey, you’re talking in full sentences again, not lists. That’s a good sign.”

For the first time since they embarked, a corner of Bones’s mouth curves upward. “Yeah.”

“Well,” says Jim, giving his thigh a pat, “I’m here every night, and I take requests.”

Bones’s smile deepens.

Jim’s hand lingers on his thigh. Bones doesn’t notice, or maybe he does and he doesn’t mind. Maybe.

6/12/10


End file.
